NUTS was one of the games I was most looking forward to in 2021, and I’m pleased to say it has lived up to its promise. In fact, it’s one of the most original and memorable video games I’ve played in some time.

You play a researcher who has been sent to conduct an environmental impact assessment ahead of proposed construction by a company called Panorama, and as part of that assessment, you have to take pictures of the local squirrels in the forest. But it’s not as simple as just taking a snap of the little fellows – you have to work out where they’re nesting.

To do that, you have to spend the day carefully positioning your video camera tripods around where you think they’ll appear, then hit record. The game will then cut to later that night, when you can review the footage and see whether you’ve picked up any of the squirrels on their trails. This bit is brilliantly done: NUTS is set in the 1990s, so all your video equipment has a satisfying clunk to it, with big chunky buttons and screen wobble as you rewind and fast forward the video tape. KER-CHUNK! SCWEEeeeeeeee… KER-CHUNK! Marvellous. It brought back fond memories of my family’s old VHS player and trying to fast forward the adverts on recorded TV shows, deftly attempting to hit play again just as the ad break finished: a fine art that has long been lost to the ever-onward march of technology.

Anyway, you might catch a squirrel on one of the cameras on your first try, getting an idea of where it might be going, then on the next night it’s time to reposition your cameras again to point them in the direction the rodent was heading. By doing this night after night, you can gradually work out the squirrel’s trail – which remains the same each day – and eventually discover its final destination.

This might sound a little dull, but I can assure you that in actual fact it is THRILLING. Well, perhaps thrilling is too strong a word, but NUTS certainly made me yelp with excitement a few times, as well as prompting a few wonderful ‘Aha!’ moments as I tracked down a particularly tricksy squirrel. Some of the best moments come when you take a punt on placing a camera, taking a wild guess on where an animal might be going, then receiving the thrill of being proved right when you review the footage later that night. Yes, THRILL. It’s a mild thrill, but a thrill nonetheless.

Even better is when something unexpected happens, like a second squirrel showing up out of the blue on one of your cameras. ‘Oh, what’s this?’ you wonder, leaning closer to examine the video footage, perhaps KER-CHUNKING a big old button to print out the image and pin it to your corkboard. ‘I shall investigate this new squirrel come the morn,’ you say, mind suddenly racing with the thought of tracking down a second rodent.

And if the thrill of squirrel tracking isn’t enough for you, there’s also a cracking story that’s excellently voiced by Almut Schwacke. She plays Nina, a researcher who gives you directions over the telephone, and the plot takes a few surprising turns over the course of the game’s six chapters. I won’t spoil anything for you here, but the squirrels may or may not be up to something.

As you’ve probably already worked out from the screenshots on this page, NUTS looks incredibly striking with its bold, two-tone colours, which change from chapter to chapter and between night and day. Not only does it look brilliant, it’s functional, too: the stark shades really help you to pick out the tiny squirrels from background details. Like 2020’s In Other Waters, NUTS shows you can do a lot with just a couple of colours, and the minimal aesthetic really helps it to stand out from the crowd.

My only real criticism of NUTS is that it’s over a little bit too quickly. You could easily finish the game in an evening, and by the end I was left wanting more. My mind is already racing with possibilities of how the concept could be evolved. What about having multiple animals on the same level, with side quests unlocking if you spot an unexpected creature? What if the animals can tamper with your equipment, or change their trail if they suspect they’re being watched? What if you were tracking ghosts instead of squirrels? There’s a whole world of possibilities here – and I’m looking forward to see how the developers build on it – and whether other indie devs will follow their lead.

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NUTS was developed by Joon, Pol, Muuutsch, Char & Torfi and published by Noodlecake, and it’s available on Switch, PC and Apple Arcade. We played the PC version.

Disclosure statement: review code for NUTS was provided by Popagenda PR. A Most Agreeable Pastime operates as an independent site, and all opinions expressed are those of the author.

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